Na jeje I dey inside bus o, dey go work o, with several thoughts in my head, groping into  the sunny weather, begging the Supreme being in charge of the climate to have mercy upon the poor souls who are getting roasted day by day.

Filled with these in my head I alighted, stretched out a 50 naira note to the driver who was eager to collect his fare. Suddenly he reclined and started yelling, “You must be stupid, Ori e o pe . Early this morning you’re giving me money with your left hand. Do I look like your mate or what? I opened my mouth in shock, perplexed, angered and pained.

You mean I got these insults on a Monday morning because I gave a driver his money with ? I kept quiet till he was done ranting. After his drama I stretched my hand and said, “ëwa ge owo mi” meaning “come and cut off my hand”. I was really furious; I felt I needed to give him a piece of my mind.

There was traffic so I entered into the bus and I began to give him in slices my mind, as edeyhot. I told him, “You are just an illiterate, who has no basis for his actions. You only act based on what you are fed with, obnoxious and irritating cultural mindsets”.

Some reasonable people began to antagonize the man for making such remarks at me, I recall a woman said, “What’s bad in using his left hand? Is it not his hand? As for me NOBODY can tell me which hand is and which hand is not”. The argument continued that I just had to alight after satisfying my urge to talk, I left them still arguing over some inhumane cultural and traditional values.

On my way, walking through the quiet path that led to my destination, I began to examine the beliefs that consider a part of the body cursed and redundant? I began to ask myself, “If I can feel pained and less human by the remark of that ignoramus driver, how many of the left handed beings in the world face this kind of discriminatory treatment from so-called “complete”, “blessed” right handed humans?  These questions began to linger in my heart which made worried and hurt.

I began to imagine how many young children would grow up with the mindset that the left hand is a taboo and a wrong hand to be used. However, some would have or have decided to deliberately change their hands from being left handed to right handedness all because of the superstitious beliefs that seems the permeate the mindset of men, women and children as to who a left handed person is.

I had a young female student of primary six who was a leftist but stopped making use of it. I asked for her reason  and she said it was her primary one teacher who thoughtlessly stopped her. She said and I quote: “my aunty in primary one said I should not use left because she does not like it” you can imagine the disservice given to the younger child. The child who is naive of any erroneous cultural injustice is been made to forgo her desire to use her left hand for right hand for no justified reason, leaving the child confused as to why she is being made to become another person.

I met another young girl of twelve years at a party, she was served jollof rice and chicken; she was evidently hungry as she eagerly launched into the food with the spoon on her left hand. Almost immediately she changed the location of the spoon to  right hand which she uncomfortably and forcibly tried to use.

She smiled timidly as she saw I was watching her, I asked why she was struggling to use her right hand when her left hand is completely “hale and hearty”, she said and I quote, “my mummy said I shouldn’t use my left hand when I am in public or else I would be called a devil”. Are you kidding me? What affiliation does being “left handed” have to do with the devil. Does he reside at the left wing of the universe or is Hell in the left part of wherever? Or is the devil and his fallen angels left handed?

This is the extreme damage that occurs when we continue to savor the decaying stench of myth and superstitious beliefs. Our society will inexorably tilt towards an imminent decline in traditional justice and cultural considerateness if we do not stop at upholding fallacious mores.

I understand your pain, even majority of common tools are designed solely for use by right handed people making it difficult, painful, or unsafe for left handed people. For example tools like scissors, saw to name but a few. To worsen it, I understand that you are considered unlucky and unfortunate beings and are seen to be stupid, dishonest and even accursed. And for the younger ones who face beating and more extreme measures as hurting their left hand fingers simply to ward off their mind from using it, I understand your pain.

I have faced it too, I have lived a life where I can’t eat with an elderly person because I use left, I can’t give an elderly person anything with my left hand else I will be considered rude, immoral and uncultured. I began to live cautiously, pretending to be right handed before aged extremists. Oh to hell with that culture!!!

Well, to my left-handed humans: First it has been discovered that approximately 10% of the world population is left-handed. This estimated percent gives me a strange feeling and a sense of hope. Do you know why? The reason is simply because despite the fact that we belong to a very minute percentage of the world’s population yet we still find great humans almost everywhere who happen to be left handed.

Now I discovered that these great humans such as left-handed U.S. presidents like James A. Garfield  20, Herbert Hoover 31, Harry S. Truman  33, Gerald Ford  38, Ronald Reagan  40 ,George H.W. Bush 41,Bill Clinton  42,Barack Obama  44 , to name a few, from Nigeria we have got the likes of the former Executive Governor of Lagos state Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) also history has it that Leonardo Da Vinci, Aristotle, Michelangelo Buonaroti, Charlie Chaplin, and the science veteran Albert Einstein were also left handed and also  the great Oprah Winfrey to name but a few. These people have internalized their identity; they have stood their grounds on their humanness and are ready to go at any length to justify their humanness through great feat which has indeed led to their immense greatness.

To the left handed humans who are still out there trying to fit into a “world that has been orchestrated for the right handed” like one fool said, I bid you to rise up and face the challenges of being left handed, confront superstitions and putrefying beliefs, let no man look down on you because you are left-handed, that is who you are, don’t try to be who you are not. You are DIFFERENT and that is the major problem.

Human beings dread uniqueness, they intimidate change, they try to bring down a person of difference, and they desire to level a distinctive man up to their standard of ignorant and mediocrity. You are not like the majority, you are a minority, let your deeds speak; let your greatness speak out your humanness. Left-handedness is not a curse; it is a gift, a call to being DISTINCT.

And for the likes of the ignorant bus driver, who just internalize rubbish, who have allowed it form their policies and belief system, I say 'Stop and think, who really is left-handed?' He is human and left handed; she is human and left handed. We are humans and left handed. I repeat we are humans. We feel pain, we feel rejection, we are happy, we are accepted. We love and desire to be loved.

This is no form of appreciation or whatsoever, but I must thank my late grandmother for beating up my mum who tried to stop me from being who I really am, who attempted to stop me from being left handed.